Leverage Leadership 2.0

Why "Leverage Leadership 2.0"

Book: Leverage Leadership 2.0: A Practical Guide to Building Exceptional Schools by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo and Doug Lemov

To support our Principal best we're learning what Principals do related to instruction and school culture. This very readable Principal training book by Uncommon Schools (28 minute documentary) will open your eyes to what's possible, challenges related to school improvement, and what a week looks like for a Principal. As we read the book together we'll learn and discuss how we can support our Dingle Principal.

Join

To join email your cell phone number to the club coordinator at dingle-pta-academics@googlegroups.com

Then, you'll receive a text message to join the club on the Marco Polo app. Marco Polo is for sharing video messages (it's fun!), though you do not have to post videos. You'll have to install the Marco Polo app on your smartphone.

Participate

• Buy or borrow your own book

• Receive a reading reminder and discussion question each Saturday morning via Marco Polo

• Respond to the question at your convenience during the week

Schedule

There are roughly 2 hrs. of reading per week.

• Saturday 4/2 - Introduction, pages 1-21

• Saturday 4/9 - read chapter 1, pages 25-87

• Saturday 4/16 - read chapter 2, pages 89-125

• Saturday 4/23 - read chapter 3, pages 127-180

• Saturday 4/30 - read chapter 4, pages 181-217

• Saturday 5/7 - read chapter 5, pages 221-261

• Saturday 5/14 - read chapter 6, pages 263-288

• Saturday 5/21 - read chapter 7, pages 289-312

• Saturday 5/28 - read chapter 8, pages 315-348

• Saturday 6/4 - concluding comments

Quotes from Book Club Members

Summary of Feedback on Data Driven Instruction

"What struck me [in this book club conversation] is the idea about parent-teacher conferences and talking about what that destination is for that family, an individualized approach, because then those families are on board and own their destination. And, realizing different families have difference destinations to some extent.... What a great thing to talk to your teacher about, an individualized destination, because then it's going to be so much more meaningful to you..... Also in our parent survey we learned that there's a bit of a disconnect. Most people that we surveyed believe that Dingle is meeting their academic needs, and most of the parents believe that being at grade level is extremely important, but as we know most Dingle scholars are not at grade level, so there's a misunderstanding of what it means to be at grade level. Parent education is super important on this topic. It's basic. I look forward to providing education to parents and also having the space and respect for parents to invest in their destination, whatever that might be for their child."

• Roll it Out:

  • Starts with a high destination (for scholars [like college, high skilled trade, etc.], high standards, and then assessments to those standards)

  • Data identifies the learning gap <-- from interim assessment results and other learning feedback

  • Data-Driven practices (practicing re-teaching, etc.) closes the gap

• Setting a high destination

  • Last August 2021 teacher Vicki Fu and teachers suggested scholars, families, and staff together creating scholars' destination post cards

  • Special guest speakers to talk to scholars and families about their possibilities for high destinations (from CSUS, UC Davis, and other contacts)

  • "Student Led Conferences" with scholars, families, and staff together help scholars and families nail down the destination (recommended by a WJUSD principal, saw scores improve)

• Data-Driven practices:

  • "There's lots of information about data-driven instruction [in the book], it's hard to figure out how it works for parents, but there are key things to know." This describes the work we're doing under parent culture / university, closing the gap between educators and non-educators.

  • Practical deliverables to make data-driven instruction from a parent point of view accessible to all families at Dingle. For example, a how-to guide to get iReady scores and how to read them if a scholar is on track for their destination, meetings in person, training at the open house, 1-pagers, videos, etc.

  • Experimentation to see if things work, test the practical deliverables before the end of the year.

  • Collaboration among all of us (parents, community members, teachers, other educators) have all been aligned. Gives confidence that we're on the right track, we just need to nail down specific tasks to start. We've already started, just making it more accessible to more parents.

• Tying it back to the big picture:

  • We're all doing this work for a reason.

  • Clarifying, "what does exemplary data-driven instruction look like across stakeholders and specifically for parents so that they're all aligned."

  • Update scorecard.

  • Most collaboration so far has been at Dingle. We have more partners, like at the WJUSD (DeAnn's department / ASES / Expanded Learning) and YCOE. Our impression is they just need to be invited (by the Principal) to collaborate.